The present disclosure relates generally to medical devices and, more particularly, to sensors used for sensing physiological parameters of a patient.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In the field of medicine, doctors often desire to monitor certain physiological characteristics of their patients. Accordingly, a wide variety of devices have been developed for monitoring certain physiological characteristics of a patient. Such devices provide doctors and other healthcare personnel with the information they need to provide the best possible healthcare for their patients. As a result, such monitoring devices have become an indispensable part of modern medicine.
One technique for monitoring certain physiological characteristics of a patient is commonly referred to as electroencephalography (EEG), and the devices built based upon electroencephalographic techniques are commonly referred to as EEG monitors. EEG monitors use non-invasive electrophysiological monitoring to evaluate global changes in a patient's condition, for example, during surgical procedures. Examples of global changes may include assessing the effects of anesthetics, evaluating asymmetric activity between the left and right hemispheres of the brain in order to detect cerebral ischemia, and detecting burst suppression. One such technique includes bispectral index (BIS) monitoring to measure the level of consciousness by algorithmic analysis of a patient's EEG during general anesthesia.
Often the monitoring devices, or probes or sensors associated with the monitoring devices, are applied to the patient. For example, electrodes for use with the EEG monitors may be applied to the temple and forehead of the patient. For example, sensors for BIS monitoring may include a single strip that includes three or four electrodes for placement on the forehead to noninvasively acquire an EEG signal. Proper placement of the electrodes of the sensor helps to correctly calculate the physiological characteristics (e.g., BIS). Misplacement of the electrodes may increase the algorithmic work, filtering, and artifacting to obtain the physiological characteristics, which may result in potentially misreporting the physiological characteristics.